SEC and US Attorney’s Office bring charges against former top managers of iPayment for misappropriating $11.6 million

13 March 2017

iPayment, a US credit and debit card-based payment processing company, is coming to an end in the investigation into the phony schemes practices by its employees. Two former top executives at iPayment were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with the fabricating the fraudulent scenario where they funneled millions of dollars from the corporate funds into their own pockets.

Former Senior Vice President of sales and marketing Nasir Shakouri and COO Robert Torino, also facing criminal charges from the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, according to the reports misappropriated the company’s funds in total amount of $11.6 million involving fraudulent expense reimbursements, inflating invoices and other unscrupulous actions.

Between 2008 and 2012 the two executives regularly issued reimbursements to themselves for transactions that in fact had never taken place with respect to their parties using their own credit cards, according to the complaint documents.

Besides, they came to illegal arrangements with the vendors for oversizing the amount of invoices in order to gain back the difference with the invoice amount and the actual commission. Shakouri and Torino also misappropriated commissions and bonuses for transactions under which they improperly directed the company funds.

Other charges are also brought against three company employees – Bronson Quon, John Hong, and Jonathan Skarie for rendering assistance to the mentioned top managers in their phony actions by forging the accounting books and records for bribes.